Category: Uncategorized

John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):
To colleagues who like this treaty, is the easy answer not that we will, of course, remain members of the WHO, read its advice and accept that advice where we wish? Why should we have to accept advice when the WHO may get it wrong, and we can do nothing about it because it decides, not us?

Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con):
That is absolutely right. We have the opportunity to say no, and it is an opportunity we need to take. Once we have said yes, we are then under the obligation to introduce, potentially, terrible infringements on liberty. I will make some more progress and then let Members intervene.

John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):
What actions are senior NHS managers taking to resolve non-pay issues for which they could offer better work experiences to doctors? What use can they make of flexibilities over pay increments, promotions and gradings so that good staff can be better rewarded?

Steve Barclay, Secretary of State for Health and Social Cate:
As ever, my right hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. As part of the negotiation with the AfC staff council, a number of non-pay issues were discussed. Job evaluation is one such issue. Likewise, for junior doctors, areas such as e-rostering are extremely important. I share his desire for investment in technology, and to look at the time spent by clinicians that could be spent by others in the skills mix or through better use of artificial intelligence technology and a better estates programme. That is why it is important that we continue to have that funding, as well as reaching the offer that we have with the AfC staff council.

Yesterday I joined in the Parliamentary discussion of an Urgent Question on pay talks and strikes in the NHS. There was was nothing new and nothing the two sides have regarded as particularly urgent in what was talked about. The Labour front bench was controlled in its demands, just wanting a resumption of talks but not backing the junior doctors’ demands for 35% and understanding that several of the Unions favour accepting the current offers made to NHS staff by the government. A few on the Labour left intervened to demand higher taxes to pay for bigger pay rises but were out of tune with their front bench and the government.

I asked about the role and work of the senior managers in the Trusts and NHS England. The Secretary of State confirmed that the junior doctors have raised a number of issues about rosters, work practices, technology and staff support for their roles. I asked what the managers were doing to improve the rosters, work packages and support for the doctors. I pointed out again that senior managers have considerable powers to change the ask of doctors, to reward good ones with promotions, salary increments and  revised gradings of jobs. Should more of these flexibilities be used to improve the mood of the workforce and to achieve more with the people the  NHS does employ?

I find it very strange that Ministers take all the burden of the pay negotiations with the staff. Senior managers rarely come onto the tv or radio to talk about the NHS though they claim considerable independence in running the service. When they do if asked about the strikes they always say it is a dispute between Ministers and Unions. Surely they must have strong  views on what is affordable, what is needed to recruit and retain, and what should happen going forward to make it easier for them to run a good service?

The establishment of NHS England was designed to distance Ministers from day to day management of the service and to leave most of the decisions in the hands of professional managers and w the clinicians they employ. So why when the service is  being damaged by strikes and when employee relations are so strained is there this silence from highly paid senior managers? Why will they only talk about trying to offset the worst impact of the strikes and not have ideas on how to end them? Why are we still waiting for the manpower plan, which should be a basic evergreen necessity in a service that relies so heavily on what employees do for patients?

There is growing suspicion of government by international treaties. Democratic countries find increasing restrictions on what their elected representatives can do as they tie themselves in a colonial type relationship to global and regional quangos. The ultimate most powerful one is the EU

Prime Ministers and Presidents  are expected to devote considerable precious time and energy to travelling around the world to talk to each other at conferences. This is increasingly bizarre, full of hypocrisy as most of them tell the rest of us to give up jet travel to save the planet. These  all too regular events come with a price, normally requiring the leaders to pledge more public spending to some global cause. They also can result in signing up to expensive and freedom sapping future commitments, as with the net zero plans at successive COPs.

These conferences also have an opportunity cost. Leaders strutting at conferences cannot at the same time pursue domestic aims and solve home problems. Money and above all precious Leader time and energy is diverted. Leaders are also more exposed to the press and international pressure groups which can result in illjudged or unwanted commitments. These gatherings are thought to promote more trade friendship and understanding but can instead create or worsen disagreements through presence which might otherwise lie dormant.

The recent wish to host President Biden in Northern Ireland was a good example of  a badly judged visit which highlighted the differences. It had come with the high price of the Windsor Agreement.

Facts4eu have taken up my arguments over GDP growth rates last year and this:

Facts4EU Article: https://facts4eu.org/news/2023_apr_bbc_fake_news

Facts4EU Twitter: https://twitter.com/Facts4euOrg/status/1647473668295991296?s=20

Facts4EU Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Facts4EU/posts/pfbid02TDEFy4yzNrLAdCGoQN98ibMyqzmyRRsknKWiw2iTvSvLauDk1Kg6V8vWrjrVG56Zl

There will be a debate over the proposed new WHO Treaty obligations on Monday. I will oppose the UK accepting new legally binding obligations to future WHO decisions unknown.

Rishi Sunak took a gamble in Scotland. He decided to use the powers of the Union Parliament to challenge a piece of SNP legislation wanted by the Scottish Parliament, because it intrudes on reserved matters to the Union Parliament. It also  happened to be unpopular with many Scottish voters, and with two of the three SNP challengers for the job of First Minister. His was the first successful challenge to a then dominant Nicola Sturgeon who  used the job of First Minister as a constant campaign platform against the Union. Subsequent events led to  her resignation, to a bad leadership contest and a series of as yet unanswered questions about SNP party funding which are doing them huge damage. It looks as if the Union will emerge stronger in Scotland for this chain of events. The PM tells us he is a Unionist and he can be pleased with what has happened and the stance  he took.

So it is even more surprising that faced with the opportunity to support Unionists in Northern Ireland he chose the opposite course and sided more with the EU and the Republic of Ireland when it came to resolving issues over the temporary Northern Ireland Protocol. This Protocol contained its own clauses looking forward to future amendment or termination and invited a better answer to be wrapped into the Future Trading Agreement between the UK and EU. The UK anyway had passed a Bill through the Commons to fix the matters unilaterally if the EU continued on its course of refusing to deal with the serious worries of the Unionists.

I am still trying to  get some answers to  very simple questions about the Windsor Agreement. I am told I cannot table a question again to ask which EU laws apply to Northern Ireland. Why is this a secret? We were told 1700 pages of law would b e disapplied. Which pages? Why has this  list not  been published?  We were told only 3% of EU law remains. So if they know the percentage they must know the laws. How was the percentage calculated? Can we see the lists and the way they assessed the volume of total law? The Union needs defending in all parts of the UK.

The latest addition to the Monetary Policy Committee is an economist who mainly tweets on Greece and the USA. She comes to the task with some scepticism about the lurch from Quantitative easing to Quantitative tightening and with an understanding that tight money policies bring recessions. This scepticism is going to be much needed as she listens to the group think that brought us 10% inflation against a target of 2% and then forecast a five quarter slump. The Bank has a long history of getting it wrong. It has specialised in boom/bust policies all my adult life. It has a habit of running easy money for too long to get inflation up, then for overcorrecting to  get it down doing great damage to jobs, output and sometimes to banks.

They recommended the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, the ultimate wild ride boom/bust machine. In the 1980s it meant selling pounds, keeping interest rates low and fostering excessive sterling money and credit, to be followed  by buying up pounds, hiking rates too high and creating a big recession. The government, Opposition and CBI all supported this madness. I took the quoted company I led at the time out of the CBI at the start of this misery in protest at the policy.

They allowed low rates and fast money growth in the period 2004-7, telling us big banks had new ways of controlling risk which made it fine for them to lend large sums in relation to their capital. Then in 2008 they turned round and blamed the banks for the excesses they had helped engineer, hiked rates and watched as a banking crash unfolded, followed by the Great recession. Many of us predicted the folly of overexpanding credit and borrowing in the run up to the crash.

They rightly created plenty of money and bought bonds to depress rates during the covid lockdown of 2020, but then added fuel to the inflationary fires by carrying on with Quantitative easing throughout 2021 when some of us were telling them it would be inflationary. Inflation hit 5.5% before the invasion of Ukraine which they solely blame for the inflation that was  inherent in their policy choice, and was absent in Japan and China despite energy prices.

Now they are following the austerity policy of Quantitative tightening long after their own forecasts tell them there will be a recession and inflation will tumble. Why? Either the forecasts are completely wrong or the policy is wrong, or both. My view is they  have done enough to bring inflation down next year. They should tighten by not replacing bonds they own when they repay, but they should not be selling more bonds at a loss.

EXCLUSIVE : Liz Truss is back – on freedom, values, growth, low taxes, smaller state, higher incomes, wokery, gender politics, China, Russia, defence… and Macron & Biden.

In a pivotal speech in Washington DC, the former PM takes no prisoners.

CIBUK Article : https://cibuk.org/truss-speech-on-freedoms-taxes-wokery-china-russia-defence-macron-biden/

CIBUK Twitter : https://twitter.com/CibukOrg/status/1646760380910166016

CIBUK Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/CIBUKOrg/posts/173292792289822

Facts4EU Article: https://facts4eu.org/news/2023_apr_truss_is_back

Facts4EU Twitter: https://twitter.com/Facts4euOrg/status/1646739413106393094?s=20

Facts4EU Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Facts4EU/posts/pfbid0Rz8gvedZvY43wUHzDAcTw9z2ectu4mp6cCh4ne4H681PvhvMNUESMz6AiBY2u86Xl

The IMF this week released a table of growth rates in GDP for the main economies of the world. It contained three years. The actual figures for 2022 and two forecast years, 2023 and 2024. The forecasts were changed from the previous forecasts for the same years, as they regularly do.

The BBC spent the day following the release running with the story that the UK is the poorest performing major economy according to the IMF. This was based on the IMF GDP forecasts for just 2023. It was usually presented as fact or news, rather than as one of many forecasts for the upcoming year which might or might not be right. So called experts were asked to comment on why we are the worst performing economy, not on the quality of the forecasts or why the forecasters thought that could happen. They were sometimes expressly asked if that was the result of Brexit.

The BBC could have led with the story that the IMF confirmed that the UK was the fastest growing economy in 2022 on the official figures, the only fact in the release. The UK’s growth rate of 4% compared with China 3%, USA 2.1%, Germany 1.8%, France 2.6% and Japan 1.1%. No expert was dragged on to be asked if that outperformance  “was due to Brexit”.

They could have provided a more balanced account by saying the IMF’s 3 year figures combining actuals and estimates show the UK ahead of France, Germany and Japan but behind the USA and Italy. They could have asked experts to comment on how we could could be even closer to  the US rate of growth and less like the German one.

The fact they did not choose to tells us the state of BBC economic commentary remains poor.